Leonard Fein
By Leonard Fein
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Opinion Can’t Win, Can’t Afford To Lose
Had President Bush delivered the same speech at the United Nations before the invasion of Iraq, and then turned to the international body to implement his vision, our world would be quite different today. As it is, we are stuck in Iraq: we cannot win, yet we cannot afford to lose. The president casts his…
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Opinion A People Dwelling Alone
To the 100,000 or more people who gathered November 1 in Rabin Square in Tel Aviv to mark the eighth anniversary of the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, there was perhaps some sense of urgency to the occasion. Just the day before, vandals had painted swastikas on the monument that marks the spot where Yigal Amir…
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Opinion Marrakech Expressions
Yes, I know there are important things, perhaps even cataclysmic things, happening in the world. But here in Marrakech their urgency somehow recedes. A well-informed guide delights in a receptive client; ours is a fountain from which everything pours out: political history and art history, sociology and archeology, economics and agriculture, irrigation systems and theology….
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Opinion Sin of the Year
Here we go again: The Yom Kippur confessional is upon us, our annual alphabetical recitation of our sins and transgressions, from “ashamnu” to “titanu,” from avarice to xenophobia and zealotry. The list never changes; the question it poses, somewhat tediously, is whether we have changed. While it may be thought useful to have a list…
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Opinion The Iraqi Frying Pan
The fear, of course, is that the entire Iraq operation will stay bogged down. Perhaps the Iraqi people will drop their growing hostility to the occupying power once the electricity goes on for good and the streets are safe and the oil begins to flow, but there is no reason to think that these and…
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Opinion All Grief Isn’t Equal
It shouldn’t make any difference, but it does, that one of last week’s suicide bombings was at a cafe on Emek Refaim Street, where I do most of my hanging out and arrange most of my meetings when I am in Jerusalem. It shouldn’t make any difference, but it does, that among the victims were…
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Opinion Damaged and Desensitized
One of the more remarkable aspects of the human species is our capacity to become inured. What begins as a shock comes eventually to feel quite routine, if repeated often enough. Think, for example, of airport security, each new upward ratcheting disconcerting at first but soon enough absorbed, no longer worthy of comment. So also…
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Opinion A Texas-Sized Scandal
All eyes are fixed on — or averted from? — the ongoing debacle in California. But at least there, it’s all out in the open, for everyone to see and shake their heads at. Ever the contrarian, I have Texas on my mind even more than California. Texas in general, Houston in particular. The “in…
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